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Newsletter – October/November 2012

It’s been a pretty stressful couple of months with lots of homework for mama, some sleep regression from Twig, occasional sibling rivalry from Peanut, Peanut starting preschool again, getting the flu, and lots of fun! Luckily, daddy stopped working 55 hours a week as of the first of October because his project was finished, so at least we had him around more often to help us with the stress.

This semester of Music Together ended at the end of November, but not before Peanut showed off her skills in class! Our teacher, Tiffany, was asking the parents to chime in with our own rhymes as part of a song. A few adults did so, but most of them were just twitching in their seats being nervous to sing. There you went chiming in with your own rhyme though! You’re so outgoing! Often you’re shy too, but when you warm up you’re really outspoken!

Speaking of how outgoing you are, you started preschool again at the end of October. You quickly made friends and from day one cried every time I came to pick you up. Considering you used to cry when I left you last year, I’m amazed! You always want to stay with your friends and you don’t like that your pickup time is right before snack! Luckily, your teachers don’t mind letting you stay for snack or take one home. Mama spends the time either getting some one-on-one time with little sister or doing homework. I often stay to watch you through the one-way window too so I can see how you interact with people when I’m not around.

You also decided to sleep in your own bed. One night I had already put sister to sleep and we were getting ready to read books. I suggested that we read them in your bed so we wouldn’t wake sister and you jumped on the idea! So we put you to bed and you sleep there until daddy goes to bed (he goes to bed quite late) and he comes up and sleeps with you for the rest of the night. You still usually wake up around 11pm-1am to come down and ask daddy where he is, but we don’t mind. You just fall asleep on the couch with daddy or he takes you upstairs and cuddles with you until you fall back asleep.

Twig, you love to mimic! It all started with Oma saying “aught-oh!” when you dropped things out of your highchair and you said it back! Since then, you mimic tones in music class (I would say music is your favorite activity) and other words. Sometimes it’s even spontaneous, like when you said “uh-ppppp” when you wanted to be picked up or when you saw a diagram of a testicle (I was taking human physiology this semester) that was orange and called it “bak-ball” (Yes, you say basketball, thanks to basketball-obsessed daddy). I don’t remember sister trying to hard to talk this early! I wouldn’t call these first words, as you generally say them after someone else has said them, but you’re certainly getting close to talking! I guess that’s what happens when you have mommy and big sister talking around you all the time.

You also learned the stairs sometime around the beginning of October. We spent a lot of time showing you how to turn around and climb down the stairs, but you for the most part avoided them until one day you just turned around and went for it. We had a nerve-wracking week or so where I didn’t trust that you wouldn’t fall, but you got the hang of it pretty quick. Then you started to get over-confident and fall down the stairs! You’d be crawling up and then decide that you need to stop and turn around to see something and tumble. Or you’d decide you wanted to hang onto the banister at the top of the stairs and try to walk up and lose your balance. Luckily, you also grew out of that pretty quick. Also luckily, we don’t have full staircases since our house is a split level.

You’re also waving bye-bye and giving kisses, which are the cutest things in the world. Of course the kisses are open-mouthed, but you love them! You’re so happy whenever you give a kiss though, since it’s been a couple months since you started, you’re not as interested in them anymore. Waving bye-bye is still really fun though. You don’t even mind that someone is leaving so long as you get to wave bye-bye! The walking is also coming along, but much more slowly progressing then it did with sister. With Peanut, it seemed like one day she wasn’t walking and the next is was her main mode of movement. For you, you’ve been doing little steps here and there, but you’re much more cautious about it. You also only want to walk when you want to and you often decide after a few steps to purposely sit down! You’re so stubborn! It’s okay though, because stubbornness is not a bad thing.

Taken right before Peanut started sleeping in her own bed.

For the both of you, the sibling rivalry has been sneaking in. Sometimes when mama picks up Twig, Peanut needs to be picked up too. Or when Peanut cries, Twig cries. Luckily you’re still pretty nice to each other, but there are sometimes squabbles where a toy gets taken or someone gets pushed over. We just keep working on being nice to each other, which works a great majority of the time. It’s great to hear silence, freak out because I realize it’s been silent for a while (and, as a parent, that generally means that someone is doing something very bad), and have it turn out that you two are happily playing tea party together. Peanut often tells me that Twig is her best friend and Twig makes it obvious that she feels the same way by her smiles when we pick up Peanut from preschool. Life is definitely more stressful with two of you, but just watching you two interact together makes it all worth it.